The present invention relates to management of computer aided design (CAD) drawings. More particularly, the present invention relates to organization and management of hierarchical relationships sheets included within the CAD drawings.
Once a designer completes a design using a computer aided design (CAD) application, often times, the designer proceeds to create drawings defining the design. Because these designs may be defined using geometric models, these drawings can be very complex and detailed depending upon the complexity of the geometric models. These drawings facilitate conveying of details of the models to people without requiring constant interrogation of the models using the CAD application.
Drawings, in general, may include many details of the models such as, but not limited to, alternative views, section views, detail views of certain aspects of each of the models, and in particular, assembly views to illustrate mating components of each of the models. Because so many aspects of the model(s) may be included within the drawing, the drawing may include many sheets, where each sheet illustrates a certain detail of a model. Depending upon the complexity of designs, a drawing may include numerous sheets showing many details.
For example, a design for a bicycle includes many components. The drawing may be the drawing for the entire bicycle with numerous drawing sheets illustrating the components making up the bicycle. The top level drawing sheet may be a view of the entire assembly, i.e., the fully assembled bicycle. Below this top level drawing sheet is one or more drawing sheets showing the many components making up the bicycle. These components, in turn, may have several drawing sheets below them showing the parts making up these components, and so forth. Additionally, the drawing sheets may show details of the individual parts, and a complex part may have to be illustrated in numerous drawing sheets. In order to accurately manage and use the drawing, the relationship between the drawing sheets must be created and maintained. Prior art CAD applications provide minimal support for managing the relationship between the drawing sheets.
For example, one way in which the relationships between the sheets may be cataloged is by generating a set of indices using the CAD application, whereby the indices illustrate the relationships between the sheets. However, if the relationships are changed, the indices have to be manually updated to reflect the changes in the sheets"" relationships. Thus, a designer is required to devise his/her own procedure for tracking changes to the relationships between the sheets.
Thus, a more user-friendly approach for manipulating and updating sheets in a mechanical design, while maintaining the hierarchical relationships between the sheets is needed. As will be discussed in more detail below, the invention achieves these and other desirable objectives, which will be apparent from the disclosure to follow.